Surrey countryside faces ‘tsunami of development’

CPRE Surrey is warning that the government’s proposed changes to the planning system and imposition of “astronomically high” housebuilding targets will lead to loss of countryside and green spaces “on an unprecedented scale”.

According to CPRE Surrey, a series of revisions to the current National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) proposed by the new government will weaken Green Belt protections, require local councils in Surrey to meet “excessive and unsustainable” housing targets, and bring about “a tsunami of new development in our countryside”.

The charity is especially concerned about the combination of the new policy to re-classify large areas of the Green Belt as “grey belt” and to change the system for calculating “housing need” figures which will mean an enormous amount of housebuilding across the whole of Surrey. CPRE fears that substantial areas of countryside will lose their statutory protection and end up being concreted over.

CPRE Surrey Chair John Goodridge says: “We know that more houses need to be built in Surrey but this is not the way. By imposing these arbitrary targets on local councils and removing the protection of Green Belt status from many of our open spaces, we face the prospect of wave upon wave of new housing estates being constructed on our countryside.”

Under the new methodology, Surrey districts will have to increase their already high housebuilding targets by a countywide average of 63%. Mole Valley will be required to increase the number of new houses built every year by 68% compared to the current requirement, in Woking the target goes up by 82% and in Waverley by 94%. The figure for Elmbridge is the highest of all; the borough will be expected to build 121% more houses than under the current housing need calculation.

Says John Goodridge: “These numbers are alarming in themselves but what is most frightening is the potential loss of Green Belt protection from some of our most precious green spaces, for example on the edge of towns and closer to the boundary with Greater London, where the Green Belt tends to be thinner but where access to open spaces and fresh air is all the more important to local people. We cannot afford to lose these pieces of green land to be concreted over. Once they are gone, they are gone forever.”

CPRE Surrey is working with the London Green Belt Council and local countryside protection groups all over Surrey to coordinate submissions to the government’s consultation on the new NPPF. The consultation runs until late September, but CPRE believes it is vital that local communities get together now to make the case for preservation of the Green Belt, and to communicate to their local councillors and MPs their concerns about these proposed changes to the planning system.

For further information please go to www.cpresurrey.org.uk

-ENDS